[GRIPE] Trying to put together a how-to guide with screenshots is a lot of work ...

... due in large part to editing headaches on the forums.

from Stardock Forums

I have been trying to put together a guide for new players for Elemental:  Fallen Enchantress by walking through my game, using screenshots to show what I see, choices I make, mixed in with text explaining why I choose what I do in terms of game setup, where I settle my first city, the risks versus benefits over taking a particular enemy on, etc.

Taking screenshots, cropping them down to their relevan portions and narratizing an explanation for the choices I make take time, of course, and I expect that ... I don't use anything special, just Paintbrush saving to .PNGs while drafting notes in Notepad.  Since (so far as I know) there is no way to directly upload images to attach and use in posts, I upload to Photobucket, since Photobucket lets me insert direct IMG links, so I use the 'Insert/Edit Image' feature.

The forum post composer/editor automatically expands when you make a long post ... mine, of course, is quite long.  This can be advantageous over a small window-in-your-browser, to allow you to see more of your post as you go, but it also has problems that make it a headache to work on a long document, especially when it includes larger images.  Using my preferred Chrome browser (not sure if this is browser-specific), whenever I attempt to paste in text from another source, regardless of where I am in the document I am working on, it jumps the page scroll to the very top of the page, burying the text cursor potentially a long ways down the web page scrollbar ... I have to then re-scroll down to find where my text cursor is, which as a document gets lengthier and lengthier, takes longer and longer and pasting text in from Notepad and keeping it properly organized under the relevant screenshots winds up taking a long time by itself.  Can this be fixed, so the webpage scrolling does not jump around while editing a post?

I have only started the initial game setup and first few turns of the game, but have had to upload 16 images to get this far in this one post.  I do not recall whether Photobucket has storage limits, but I expect I will hit them soon if there are any ... is there any way Stardock could at least consider allowing users to upload images?  Several players are trying to help new players out with guides including screenshots, and I think given Stardock potentially gains by experienced players helping new players with Stardock's games, I would think it should behoove Stardock to enable players to upload their screenshots and relevant graphics directly instead of having to gobble space on third-party sites like photobucket.

Thanks in advance for your time, thoughts and consideration.

26,487 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I do not recall whether Photobucket has storage limits, but I expect I will hit them soon if there are any ... is there any way Stardock could at least consider allowing users to upload images?

Have you considered dropbox.com You get a lot of space for this stuff and you get the public links.

good luck with the starting positions... a beta poll showed that everybody was all over the place with strategies there and tech tree strategies as well. It's surprising to realize that my strategies that worked were dramatically different from many other people strategies as well.


 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm getting public links now, I just think it might be appropriate for Stardock to provide the storage and bandwidth for players to use to help other players.

Yes, I play my particular way I do, but am of the opinion a wide variety of styles can work with the game.  Customizability, I think, is one of Elemental's (yes, both WoM however loathed, and Fallen Enchantress) great strengths over other TBS games.  Civilization V ... love it or hate it, you are very limited in each era ... you can't give your Warrior different weapons nor armor, you are very limited for the bonuses your Civilization gets, etc.  It also applies to playstyles ... Magnar slaves?  Beastlord armies?  Highly industrialized with armies of powerful trained warriors and mages?  There are a lot of very different ways to play and win, I am just trying to show the way I do.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Is there any way you could record the steps taken as a video and upload to YouTube? Then all you would need to do is embed the video in your post, along with any additional info.

Just a thought.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

As one that has done many tuts for Sin of a Solar Empire, I know where you're coming from. I actually gave up on using the forum and went to a free web hosting site. Started with weebly, but they were limited in use unless you paid. Went to x90x which is everything free excerpt no files over 100mb. This site is awesome. It don't take long for others to start bookmarking and linking and I even had a moderator sticky post all my links.

 

   

 

If you use the forum for tuts, I recommend learning tables, above is a table with images in the background of a cell.

Another table example

   
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Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

A game takes hours.  Youtube limits me to 10 minute videos.

I am considering eventually doing one with Youtube, but will try writing one out first.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Wizard1956, reply 3
Is there any way you could record the steps taken as a video and upload to YouTube? Then all you would need to do is embed the video in your post, along with any additional info.

Just a thought.

You can also do something like this with Jing:  http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Then, you can use Google and Skydrive if you got in back when, you have 25 GB... if not, then you have 7 GB free.

Google is not such a good deal. Dropbox is about $10 per 100 GB (if I remember correctly).

You'd have to decide the number, length, etc. of clips/screenies, though.